This one started out really fun.
1 - Fine. Tough climb back up to trail.
2 - My first real lesson in the green here. Instead of leaving the trail at white, I went past it because the control was further down and I wanted to leave the trail perpendicularly (don't as me why). Then I got stuck in the thorns and had to climb back out to the trail. Took the white down to the tree stump. Marek had beat me to it but then he was stopped there, looking at the map.
3 - Marek and I ran together along the stream. I think we were both expecting the control to be along the stream but when we reached the appropriate bend in the stream, there was clearly nothing there. Looks like we kept running on hoping to see it but after a certain point it was clear we should have seen it by then. I looked more closely at the map and saw that the control was actually on the edge of the clearing. Without a word to Marek I ran up and grabbed the flag first. In hindsight, I should have never even been down there with the stream. Should have approached from the clearing.
4 - Was too anxious to get across the water that I rammed myself into shoulder high thorns. Branch got in my left eye and contact popped out. I cannot believe that I actually saw where it hit the ground. I really really hoped it was where I thought it was and reached down through the thorns to grab it. Licked it cleaner and popped it in my eye. Marek was nice enough to wait for me to say I was all right before racing on ahead. That was the last I saw of him on the course. Once I extricated myself several minutes later, I ran to 4 no problem.
5 - I ran across the clearing into the woods but entered the woods at the wrong place and had to head back out to the trail to get my bearings. Went back and forth a bit there before finding the right entry point into the woods. not sure why I had such a hard time with this one...Probably too impatient.
6 - Seemed to be right on the "trail"
7 - Kept running ahead and peering back and below to see if I would see the flag and rootstock.
8 - Ran across the clearing, through a bit of green and up the hill to find the water. From the looks of it, I don't think I'm good at running in a consistent direction.
9 - It looks like for this one, I almost tried one of my "leave the trail perpendicularly" strategies. Then I looked at the green and said "not again" and backtracked to the trail leading to the reentrant.
10 - Was fine cause I'd been down this way earlier.
11 - Was even finer because I saw this control earlier.
12 - Easy peasy lemon squeezy
13 - Control from hell. I spent 17 minutes on this sucker. I tried so many things I can't remember the sequence so I'm relying on gps data. I decided to approach from the "left". I was actually headed in the right direction at first, but I got thrown off by the two larger streams below me. Thinking they were the two smaller "streams" where the control was. I followed the left of the two larger streams eagerly up to the top. No flag. But there was a huge trail. I don't think it occurred to me at all out there that I might have followed the stream I did. I saw that I was clearly at a big trail, but couldn't believe it. Apparently I took the trail anyway out towards the clearing and it looks like I tried to crash through the green but it was really thick and i wasn't confident I was in the right place.
Incredibly, instead of taking the clearing back down to the lower clearing, I backtracked the way I came (completely missing a trail that would have taken me right to the control), back down to the lower level clearing where 11 and 12 were. This time I decided to start towards 13 from the right side. It's hilarious to see now that I tried twice to hack through an enormous amount of green then gave up and went around to the intermediate level clearing by way of some much lighter green. Finally found my way there. Thank god the flag was still there or I might still be out there.
14 - Was uneventful after 13. I wonder if I could have approached it from the clearing side....it looks like there was a fence there. Maybe one of those barbed wire ones?
15 -Made it there fine. Saw Dean heading off with the flag in the distance. Yelled out but he didn't hear me. Went on to 16, thinking that it and 17 were probably taken down now too.
16 - I didn't know where this one was supposed to be. Looks like I entered the circle but not sure if I would have seen it.
17 - I thought the control was at the disc golf goal, but apparently it was at some kind of building right next to it, that I was completely oblivious to. Just wanted to get back.
Amazingly, Marek finished after I did. He went through his own little hell at control 4. Poor Marek.